A large number of liquid laundry detergents are available to today's consumers. While many of the detergents adequately remove dirt, soil and odors, effectively cleaning textiles (for example, clothing items) very well in traditional horizontal axis and/or vertical access washing machines, there is an ongoing desire to provide consumers with additional fabric care benefits resulting from their laundry detergent and through the wash cycle, such as softening, color protection, protection from fabric wear, and gentle treatment of fine textiles (such as wool and silk).
Cationic polymers such as cationic hydroxyethyl cellulose polymers are traditionally commercially supplied for inclusion in detergent compositions, particularly hair products such as shampoos. More recently, such cationic polymers have been experimented with in heavy duty liquid laundry detergents to enhance deposition of other known materials that provide softening benefits to laundered textiles but do not deposit well during traditional washing machine cycles.
It has now been surprisingly discovered that such cationic polymers may in combination with surfactant and fatty acid provide fabric care benefits to laundered textiles, when included in selected aqueous liquid laundry detergent compositions.